


Playing With Power

by Helenadorf



Series: Captain N: Remastered, Season 1 [2]
Category: Captain N: The Game Master, Metroid Series, Rockman | Mega Man Classic, 光神話 | Kid Icarus (Video Games), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain N Rewrite, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 09:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20636894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helenadorf/pseuds/Helenadorf
Summary: EPISODE 2. After surviving an attack from Mother Brain, our heroes choose to stick around to protect the Palace of Power from any further attacks. But first, Kevin needs something to defend himself with. Lana knows a place, but to get it, Kevin has to endure six trials. It sounds standard enough, but can a normal kid really get through a series of obstacle courses meant for video game characters?





	1. Chapter 1

*

Kevin was still with awe. In what had probably been about three hours, he had shown up in a new world where video games were real, met four of his favourite heroes, and helped them all fend off the combined armies of Mother Brain, Medusa and Dr. Wily. He hadn’t helped _much_, mind— what was shouting some easy advice and plugging in a few things compared to actually _fighting_? And admittedly, he was kind of worried about the fact that Mother Brain seemed to have _expected_ their victory and had taken the time to gloat at them.

But it was also hard to stay worried after Samus Aran, the best of the best, had smacked Mother Brain right back down and now stood in front of him with the utmost confidence coming off of her like the warmth of the sun.

“Was that all?” She’d asked Lana.

Lana managed to compose herself despite how exhausted she was. “Uh… I mean, you heard Mother Brain. She plans to attack again.”

Samus stepped towards her. The rest of her armour dematerialized as she did, revealing her in a blue, skin-tight jumpsuit. It shouldn’t have surprised Kevin as much as it did that Samus was built like a brick house— boy, had the game _not_ done her any favours in that regard. He could also totally understand why Lana shied back when Samus leaned forward.

“Not quite what I was asking,” she said. “Were those small fries the _only_ forces that she sent here?”

“I don’t think you can call Medusa a _small fry_,” muttered Pit, “Though I’d love to see how she’d react to that.”

“Yeah, I’ll give credit for the giant, gorgeous snake woman.” Both Pit and Simon seemed startled by that impression, but Samus continued. “But did they send anything else?”

“A giant worm,” Lana managed lamely. Kevin wondered if she felt a little embarrassed that she had nearly been overwhelmed by such weak bad guys, at least now that she was in the presence of someone like Samus. _All_ of these heroes were one-person armies, but Pit, Mega Man and Simon just didn’t have that sense of utter infallibility that Samus did.

“Deorem?” Samus said. “I’d like to know how they got it from Zebes to here.”

“Oh, yeah! Kevin mentioned someone like you who fights aliens!” Pit said, making the connection only now. “Then you’re her? Samus Aran?”

“The spaceship didn’t give it away?” Mega Man asked.

Samus let out a short, cocky laugh. “Yeah, that’d be me! So, kid.” She turned back to Lana. “I could see that this place is important. It has to be, if Mother Brain wants it. What’s your plan now?”

Lana swallowed her embarrassment, but Kevin could still tell she was kind of frazzled. He didn’t blame her. Her voice was tense, and she clasped her hands together tightly to keep them from shaking. “I… I don’t know. I think it’s clear that I can’t keep defending the Palace by myself, but I also can’t keep asking you to come bail me out every time Mother Brain attacks.”

Samus nodded. “You’ll need us in the long-term.”

“Your presence also makes the Palace stronger,” Lana said. “But I won’t impose. Whether or not you want to keep helping me is up to you.”

“Without question,” was Samus’ reply, blunt and unhesitant. “If Mother Brain’s back, I’ll live up to what I told her. I won’t let her cause any more trouble.”

Then she looked to the guys. Kevin wasn’t standing among them, off on his own side of the room, with Duke sitting at his feet. But he still felt the question asked of him without her having even acknowledged him yet. Would he stay and help Lana defend the Palace from Mother Brain and her new allies?

_Could_ he even stay and help?

Simon was the first to respond. “As you said, I’m more than happy to remain. I believe it would be nothing short of irresponsible to turn my back after I have seen what threatens this world, and if I understood what was explained to me correctly, much more.”

Pit barely let Simon finish his sentence before leaping in. “Me too! After all, Medusa’s one of the bad guys here. I already beat her once, and I’m more than happy to do it again!”

“I agree,” Mega Man said. “I want to help. Dr. Wily is in over his head this time, not that he isn’t already most of the time— but the point is, this is so much worse. Medusa and Mother Brain sound way more dangerous than anything else I’ve ever heard of.”

“Well said.” Samus nodded, and then finally caught Kevin in her sights.

He froze up. He couldn’t help it— Samus’ eyes were piercing, demanding. Even without her armour, she looked so intense that he almost felt bad for any Space Pirate that made the mistake of getting in her way. He didn’t want his answer to disappoint her. But again…

Samus’ incredulous expression shamed him well before her words did. “To be honest, I’m not sure what you bring to the table. Cupid there said you know a thing or two about Zebes’ wildlife, but that’s not much.” She didn’t notice Pit get fussy over the nickname.

“That’s the thing,” Mega Man chimed in. “Kevin doesn’t just know about your world; he seems to know about _everyone’s_ worlds.”

That surprised Samus. Duke nudged Kevin’s leg, and he felt a sudden need to live up to what Pit and Mega Man were saying. After all, he didn’t want them to look like liars.

“Th-the ones we saw before you got here were mostly from Brinstar,” Kevin managed to stammer out. “And like you said, I think they only sent their weakest forces. Like— like the Mets, and, I mean, Sniper Joes are tough, but not _Guts Man_ tough. Medusa didn’t bring any Reapers or Eggplant Wizards.”

By the end of his list, he felt a little bit more confident. At the very least, enough to give a bit more for Samus to work with. She decided to test him more: "And what about the pretty blond? Anything from his world?"

Kevin heard Simon choke, but didn't dare look away from Samus. "No. I don't think Dracula's on Mother Brain's list of new friends."

"Anything else you know besides enemies?"

"I know that Dr. Wily used to be friends with Mega Man's creator," Kevin said. In the corner of his eye, Mega Man startled. "I know that he was built by a guy named Dr. Light. I know that Pit had to fight his way from the pits of the Underworld to fight Medusa the first time and save Palutena. Before Simon, Dracula was slain a hundred years prior. And you-- you were sent to Zebes because the Space Pirates had stolen the Metroids from the Galactic Federation."

Now Samus looked properly impressed. But now that the info dump was out of his mouth, he wondered if it was somehow creepy of him to know all of this; like he was some kind of weird stalker for having all this information offhand, without any real explanation. What had been the excuse he gave Mega Man? _I read up_.

She laughed, though, and smacked Kevin on the shoulder. "So you _do_ know your stuff. Alright, kid. So are you going to put it to good use?"

Kevin gave her the best smile he could muster. "Yeah. If there's any way I can help, I'll do it."

It felt like such a huge promise. He meant it— he _wanted_ to mean it— but could he really? Did he really have any information that wasn’t better given by the others? And what about everything back in his own home world? He hadn’t exactly left a note behind!

But he’d said it, and now he had to stick to it. It wouldn’t be right to do anything less.

“Well, now that that’s settled,” Samus said, “We should prepare ourselves for Mother Brain’s next attack. I’ve seen what blondie and the kids can do—” she looked at Lana and Kevin. “But, how well can the two of you fight?”

Lana raised her hand. “Um, I can fight okay. I managed to hold my own until everyone else got here, at least.”

“For how long?”

Lana paused. Counted on her fingers. “…Two hours.”

“Well, for a building this massive? Pretty impressive on your part. What about him?”

Kevin blushed. “Not at all.”

Simon stepped in. “Ms. Aran, if need be, I can train them. Lana said earlier that she has lived in this Palace her entire life, presumably alone. Kevin is, if well-read, a civilian. I’ve taught such people to fight before, and can guide them towards being more effective warriors, though I hesitate to think of them in any further danger.”

“I don’t think you know how to shoot a gun,” Samus replied.

“Er, no.”

“Then we’ll _both_ train them. And we’ll work out the logistics later.” Samus put her hand to her chin, considering. “I think I’d like to make sure they’re _armed_, first.”

“I already am,” Lana said, lifting up her Power Glove. “And I know where we can get something for Kevin.”

* * *

Lana explained on the way that the Palace was more than the castle itself— in a way, it encompassed the entire area within the perimeter, with secret paths and caves and even dungeons. In those dungeons, as any good adventurer would guess, were weapons and armour. The phrase _like a video game_ went unvoiced because, well, _duh_.

“I got my Power Glove in one of those,” she said. It was oversized for her hand, but it seemed to suit her, in a way. Like one could just somehow _tell_ that it belonged to her.

She knew the way from the Palace’s highest spire to its simplest dungeon off by heart. She said that the Dungeon of Trials would be perfect for a novice like Kevin, who needed his first weapon, and one that would be easy for him to learn. It just took a quick teleport to the ground (after a long descent down _way too many_ stairs) and a few minutes of walking until she led them to the mouth of a cave beneath a hillside.

The inside of the cave was lined with stone walls, untamed and naturally jagged. Traces of the Palace’s white marble pathways guided them deeper in, but it wasn’t far before they came up to a small dais in front of a set of large, elegant doors. Though it wasn’t as pristine as the Palace itself, it was still undeniably connected to it. The cave also split off into an unmarked and unlit path off to the left.

“This dungeon,” Mega Man said, “Is it just for one person?”

“Yeah.” Lana brushed some hair out of her face. “I mean, it’s supposed to be. I think. I didn’t have anyone when I got the Power Glove, so…”

A large, booming voice spared an awkward silence. “Welcome to the Dungeon of Trials,” it said, echoing from seemingly nowhere. “Step forth, they who chooses to undergo my tests.”

Pit nudged Kevin from the back, though he didn’t need the reminder that he was the whole reason they were even here. He stepped onto the dais, watching it light up as he stood in its center. His gaze went to the doors in front of him, waiting to see what would happen.

“What is your name?” the voice asked.

Kevin answered.

“Kevin Keene, you embark on the first of many adventures. Beyond this door are six trials— fail three, and you will leave here with nothing. However, if you pass at least four, you will obtain the weapons you need. They will be trials of mechanics and trials of ability. Do you accept these conditions?”

Kevin considered what that would mean, in video game terms. “Trials of mechanics” sounded like puzzles. “Trials of ability” sounded like he’d have to fight. He couldn’t help but draw parallels to _The Legend of Zelda_ in particular, how that game would lock the player in a room until a puzzle was solved or the room was emptied of enemies. Hopefully he’d get something more like a bunch of Octoroks to take out and not a bunch of Darknuts…

“I do,” he answered. He wasn’t sure he’d be any good at fighting, but it wasn’t like anything in here would kill him, right?

He suddenly shivered. _This isn’t a game. You don’t know that._

But he stuck to his answer.

“Very well.” The doors began to slide open. “Enter, Kevin Keene, and begin the first trial.”

Hearing movement behind him as well, Kevin turned to see Lana about to lead the others down the other pathway. She stopped to explain before leaving.

“We can watch your progress as you go,” Lana said.

“And if anything happens, we can bust in,” Samus said. She paused— “That’ll probably count as an automatic failure for that trial, but hey, at least you won’t be dead.”

Simon shot her a look, and Lana hastily said: “Good luck!”

Pit took hold of Duke as he followed them along, and Kevin looked back to the open doors. With a deep breath, he entered the first room.

* * *

It turned out that the _Zelda_ comparison had been apt, because he knew this puzzle— albeit in a slightly different, less obvious set-up. The room seemed to be mostly empty, with the occasional large rock stuck in the middle of empty, stone-covered space. However, next to each of them— and a couple of random spots on the walls of the room— were what looked like unlit bombs. Next to him by the entrance door was a torch.

The voice called to him again. “Find your path to the next room,” it commanded.

He knew what to do, then. He had to pick a rock, blow it up, and hope that it would lead him to the next trial. Sounded simple enough, but as he moved to pick up the torch, it occurred to him again: _this isn’t a game_.

Blowing _all_ of them up wasn’t an option. He had to take shelter, didn’t he? He didn’t know how far debris would fly, and how bad it might hurt if he got hit with some. He also had to avoid wasting bombs, because it didn’t look like he was getting any more if he somehow messed up with them. Doing a quick count, there were only as many bombs as there were spots marked for him to blow up.

He also had to be realistic about where that next path could actually be. For example, he counted out the entire wall behind him, because that would just lead him back to the place he just came from. And if his friends were watching from the left, the left wall was probably not the answer, either.

That settled it. He just had to start with the right and back walls first, then he’d start counting down the rocks.

Satisfied with his plan, he picked up the torch. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked, but it still felt solid in his hands. He picked his first bomb, strapped to the center-right wall of the room, and started with his plan.

He carefully walked over, lowered the flame to the fuse, and bolted to hide behind a boulder on the other side of the room. Kevin waited, braced himself for the sound, and sure enough—

_KA-BOOM!_

The explosion was ear-splitting, and he could _feel_ the vibrations through the ground. The resulting debris fell all around him in chunks, and once he felt it was over, he peeked over his cover and got a look at the conclusion.

Well, there was less wall than there’d been before, but no pathway. Wrong first guess.

“Okay, there _has_ to be a better way of working this out…” Kevin thought for a moment.

He backtracked mentally: he was in a cave. Caves were made of solid stone. So if he wasn’t careful, in addition to killing himself he could also end up caving the place in in the process of trying to navigate it. So maybe the path was blocked by something _not_ made of stone?

Which lead to the question of how he could _tell_. It would have to be solid enough material to block his path, and not just be shoved out of the way. Maybe it would make a different sound when he knocked…

Kevin gave that a shot.

He walked slowly around the perimeter of the room. At every spot where there was an unlit bomb, he knocked the end of the torch against the wall— the sound of dense wood against solid stone was a clear and low _thok_, unmistakably correct in its presence. Satisfied, he would move on, until he found that every wall in the room seemed to be as it was supposed to be.

Which meant that he needed to test the boulders next. In this testing, he made the extra assumption that if one of the boulders was fake, it would be the _entire_ boulder, to block a hole that would presumably be large enough to let the average human being through. Sure enough, the boulders gave the same sound as the walls, as to be expected.

Until he got to the second-to-last one, at the far side of the room. When he hit the end of the torch against it, he was instead greeted with a much tinnier knocking sound— echoing and hollow. _Wrong_.

Kevin grinned. “There it is!”

He lowered the torch to the unlit bomb at the base of the boulder, jogged for cover and ducked behind it.

Even the explosion didn’t quite sound the same. Debris, rather than being in somewhat-round pieces, dropped instead in curled, irregular shapes, lit ablaze by the blast. Kevin noticed that while the texture of stone was painted on the outside of the debris, the inside looked a whole lot more like metal.

“You have passed the first trial,” said the voice of the dungeon. “Please proceed to the next challenge.”

Kevin dropped the torch off to the side of the room, looking at the path he’d opened. It looked dark and foreboding, with a ladder leading him down into the darkness— but the pride of having succeeded at the first made him unafraid of the next. He climbed down into the pit.


	2. Chapter 2

*

“So how’s he doing?” Samus asked.

The room they were watching from had a one-sided window peering into the room Kevin had just left. The bounty hunter had taken a moment to see what else could be found in the cave, and came back just that moment.

Pit, who was sitting with Kevin’s dog, craned his head back to answer her question. “He just finished the first trial,” he said. “He’s on trial two.”

“Cool.” Samus found a seat next to Duke. Sad as the poor dog seemed to be separated from his owner, he appreciated the new company. He definitely appreciated it when Samus pet him.

The room lurched, then pulled itself downwards to travel down, following Kevin down the way to the next room. Mega Man turned to Lana with an uncertain look on his face. “How dangerous are these trials?” he asked.

“Um, the first half of the trials are pretty standard,” she said. “Or… at least, as standard as it gets by anyone’s standards. Solving puzzles, try not to get hurt by any of the environmental hazards; as long as he doesn’t rush himself, he should be fine. It’s just the latter half that can get kind of bad.”

“’Bad’, how?” Simon asked.

Lana pressed a finger to her lips. “A lot tougher, and a lot more dangerous. The Palace won’t let him get seriously injured if it can help it, but it _will_ summon enemies and put him through a lot more rigorous obstacle courses.”

“That’s a problem,” Samus stated bluntly. “He said he’s never fought before. Unless he can think on his feet, or the Palace goes easier on him than it did on you, he won’t make it.”

There was a brief silence, broken eventually by Pit’s optimism. “Well, he’s a pretty smart kid, if nothing else! I’m sure he’ll be fine! I mean, we were all beginners at one point.”

“Yeah,” Mega Man agreed. “That’s true.”

The room stopped, putting them overlooking a new area. But even then, the only thing on the other side of the window was the glow of torchlight.

* * *

Kevin dropped from the ladder into the second trial room. The two torches on either side of the entryway revealed two pathways going either direction, both extending into the darkness. He didn’t need to be told his objective before he figured it out, but the dungeon instructed anyway: “Find your way to the other side.”

How to handle a maze?

Well, the main idea was to pick a path and start walking, but Kevin knew that if he didn’t keep track of where he had already been, he’d get himself lost for sure. He didn’t have the tools to make himself a map, nor any string to guide his way through Greek myth-style. But he had another idea, along those same lines.

He looked down at the ground he was standing on. In the first trial room, the ground had been hard and stony. But here, he was standing on a sandier surface. He knelt down and dug a finger through and made a line. There was a brick floor beneath the sand revealed by his finger, coloured a contrasting blue.

This would totally work, then. Kevin dug his heel, grabbed a torch, and began to drag his way down the right path, making a line in the sand behind him.

The maze was standard, as far as he could tell so far. He came up to the occasional dead end, backtracked, and marked it down with a perpendicular line before going down a different way. The darkness creeped him out, but he couldn’t hear anything in the distance that might attack him. He kept an eye out anyway.

He passed an empty torch holder mounted on the wall to his left. He continued on, found another dead end, backed up and marked it off. Then he turned.

He did his best to make a mental map as he went along. Kevin was always good with directions, at least enough to keep up a newspaper route when he was younger, and good enough to know his way around the sometimes-confusing world of Hyrule and the exceptionally complicated planet of Zebes. It helped that he’d given his mom directions on road trips. A simple maze wasn’t so bad.

He came up to another straight path, and he felt confident until he noticed something. Didn’t he know that torch holder?

Looking down, sure enough, he’d already left tracks here. Well, that just meant he had to take a different turn this time, didn’t he? No big deal. So Kevin kept on moving.

Except that wasn’t the last of it.

Somehow, no matter which way he went, he always ended up back in this one place with the random torch holder and multiple tracks that gave him a good count of the number of times he found himself here. It took about three times before he stopped to think.

The maze was magical, no surprise there, but he had to wonder. Was there a way to _outwit_ the maze? Surely there was. The moment he thought of that, Kevin knew which path to take.

He turned around and went back.

Kevin stopped dragging his foot as well, leaving only his faint footsteps to track his progress. The turns were, sure enough, totally different now— and he had no line to say he’d been here already. Nodding in satisfaction, he went back to his old strategy and started marking off what lead nowhere and tracking down what lead somewhere.

After heading down a long path for a while, he started to wonder if he’d found the end. Raising the torch, he could just see the path continuing on almost endlessly, while he was too far in to see where he’d come from. Swallowing his nervousness, he just kept moving. Eventually…

_Dangit!_ The same torch holder as before, even though he’d taken a totally different path. He was starting to think that the routes didn’t actually matter, and the labyrinth was actually meant to be a magical roundabout. But there had been an entrance, and presumably there was still an exit—but how was he supposed to find it if he landed in the same place every time?

_Wait._

He looked again at the torch holder. Thinking back, there hadn’t been any on the walls around him, just in this one spot. The only other place where there was one was the entrance, which he figured was now blocked to him now that he was stuck in the maze. Which meant there had to be something special about this spot, and a reason for the holder to be there.

He looked at his torch. Set it into the holder.

Behind him, the wall parted, shifting forward with a loud rumble and moving to the side. It revealed a doorway, lit much like the entrance of the labyrinth. With the opening of the exit, the Palace’s voice came through: “You have passed the second trial. Please proceed to the next challenge.”

Kevin grinned. He had been ready to kick that same wall if it hadn’t moved on its own, so lucky him he didn’t have to break his foot on the second trial. He moved forward through the doorway.

* * *

The door shut behind Kevin, this time giving him only a few feet of solid ground to stand on before the room turned into a giant pool. The water was clear and clean, Kevin could see down to the bottom. He was sure, however, that it was much deeper than it looked from the surface. There was a pathway to a higher level in this room, winding around the perimeter of the pool, not tall enough to be called an upper floor. There, figures that looked a heck of a lot like Sniper Joes patrolled the upper segment. He could just barely see a jail cell at the end of it, on the far side of the room, but he couldn’t catch the person inside it.

The dungeon gave him his objective: “Free the prisoner.”

Now he’d run in to trouble. He guessed he was supposed to treat this like a stealth mission, because it wasn’t like he had any other choice. But how was he supposed to get past the guards? Going into the water wouldn’t take him anywhere, and it’d get their attention. Staying on solid ground was a nominally better idea in that he could still run. But for what cover?

That said, they didn’t seem to notice him on the lower floor, even though there was no visual boundary between him and them. He had to imagine that would change the moment he got on their level. Could he sneak up behind them and slip by?

Or, maybe he could distract them. There were only three Joes, with one set stationary right outside the jail cell. It had the key glinting in the light, dangling from its neck. The other two had a set path. Maybe if he could get the two patrolling guards to take care of each other, that’d leave him with more room to deal with the prison guard.

Kevin knelt down to the ground. It was sandy, like the maze floor. He found a decent rock buried within and began to sneak his way across the path. He waited until the closest Joe’s back was turned to him, and did his best to remember little league baseball in third grade.

He threw the rock and watched it hit the second Joe right in the face.

Ducking behind the silhouette of the first Joe, he waited for the result. The second one gave whatever equivalent of an offended ‘Hey!’ and marched up to his buddy. The argument didn’t take long to start.

They weren’t speaking in proper language, at least none that Kevin could recognize. After a few moments, it got physical, and the second Joe shoved the first. They didn’t seem to bother aiming their busters at each other as the fight escalated, eventually leading to them grappling one another. In their distraction, Kevin took a chance and quietly approached.

When he was close enough, he shoved them both towards the edge, towards the water. Caught off-guard, they both fell right into the water with twin synthesized yelps.

Once they hit the water, though, they sank and began to spark violently. They flashed red, convulsed erratically, and exploded.

It didn’t go unnoticed by the last Joe, and nor did Kevin, for that matter. Kevin panicked when he saw a buster aimed right at him.

He let out a noise too embarrassing to describe and bolted up the path as the Joe began firing at him. Though only three shots were fired, Kevin guessed that it had less to do with the Sniper Joe’s AI and more to do with reload time. He also knew the Joe wouldn’t miss once Kevin made it up to the top, on its level.

Thinking fast with no time to do so, Kevin did the first thing that came to mind: he football-tackled the prison guard. With no balcony, he and the Joe toppled into the water like the other guards had.

Kevin was no fighter, but he was a strong swimmer, being on the high school swim team and having spent last summer as a life coach. In the moments that the Sniper Joe was shorting out, Kevin grabbed the key from its neck, kicked it off of him and dove deeper into the pool. When the Joe exploded, the water slowed the resulting debris and kept it from being dangerous.

Well, that was that.

Kevin swam for the pathway, reached for the edge of the surface and hoisted himself over it, taking a gasp of fresh air. He quickly rubbed the water out of his eyes and knocked it out of his ears before marching up to the prison.

As he approached the cell, Kevin realized that he could recognize the silhouette sitting patiently inside. It wasn’t familiar in the sense that everything else in this world had been, where he could figure out what everything was compared to their 8-bit sprites. This person was familiar in a more direct sense, with the professional attire, short-cut hair… and when he was at an angle to get a clear view, before he got the key in the door, he froze.

_Mom?_

No, it wasn’t _quite_ her. She was still as a mannequin, a little too dead-eyed and plastic-looking to be the real deal. But it still shook Kevin to his core, just for a different reason.

_Why does the dungeon… Palace, whatever— why does it know what my mom looks like?_

Kevin suddenly didn’t want to know. Wasn’t his showing up here bizarre enough? Doing these trials was already well past his threshold for surreal. But something about this in specific pushed his buttons for the situation being _wrong_, in a way that he really didn’t want it to be and he couldn’t describe. What _else_ did the Palace know?

He forced himself to shake it off and unlocked the door. The moment the cell swung open, both the “prisoner” and what was left of the Joes behind him disappeared into smoke. What was left was an open doorway in the cell, glowing with an obscuring light.

“You have passed the third trial. I will give you the first of your weapons. Please proceed to the next chamber.”

Kevin was still a little rattled, and couldn’t help feeling nervous, but he pushed forward, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and marching on to see what this first prize was.

* * *

The ground was beaten and old, with a white stone path from the door towards an altar at the far end of the room. Ivy curled from the ground onto the walls. Peering down at the altar from some unseen hole in the ceiling was a graceful light, the only one illuminating the entire room, interrupted only by the promised artifact hovering above the altar itself.

It looked like an NES controller. It had that familiar light-and-dark-grey pattern, with the buttons in their expected places. There was no connecting wire—instead where it would have come out was a green bar, divided into ten segments. As he approached the altar, he felt the light slowly start to wash over him like a warm ocean tide.

Kevin reached up his hands to take the controller delicately in his hands. His fingers brushed against a vertically aligned metal strap on the back. As it settled into his palms, the green bar at the top of the controller came to life, growing full across the ten segments.

“This is the Power Pad,” explained the dungeon. “This is not a weapon of direct combat. With this, you can move and jump like you never could before. However, it will take its energy from you directly, so be careful.”

Kevin hadn’t a clue what that meant, but he nodded anyway. He strapped the Power Pad to his belt buckle. It wasn’t the most practical place to put it, but he had no idea where else to do so.

“Take your time to learn it. You will require it for the coming trials.”

That was about all the dungeon had to say, and Kevin decided that advice was sound. And he had some idea where to start, at least.

So, firstly, to jump. It was standard for any NES game that the A-button be the jump button. So, naturally, he pressed that one first.

“Who_aaa_!” Kevin’s heart leapt up into his throat as he suddenly found himself several feet in the air, his legs having thrown him up there of their own volition— for a split moment, he could see the floor uncomfortably far beneath him, and in his panic he flailed in the air. When he landed, he landed squarely on his butt, hard enough to hurt. Not as much as it would have if he’d just _fallen_ from that height, but enough to teach him that it would do him good _not to panic_.

He shook it off and tried the B button next. Nothing seemed different, and in moving his body didn’t behave different, either. He guessed that since B was usually the attack button, he’d have to wait until he got an actual weapon to figure out what that did.

Next, he tried to press UP on the directional pad. This time, his body threw him several feet forwards, and he squawked as he nearly fell again. It was a safe bet to guess that the other directions were obvious. If he needed to dodge quickly, then, he’d be better off using this than relying on his natural speed.

Next, he pressed START. The action brought up a blue interface a lot like the one that came from Lana’s Power Glove, but this was of an empty inventory bag. He had nothing to put in it now, but he knew that would come in handy later.

Finally, the SELECT button. Kevin didn’t notice an evident change, but he did realize quickly he was starting to feel light-headed. Quickly, he pressed the button again and felt himself gasp for breath. Was this what the dungeon meant by the Power Pad taking its energy from Kevin?

He looked down at the green bar on top of it, and saw that it was already halfway empty. He startled, until he realized that not only was he already starting to feel better, but the bar replenished itself bit by bit, slowly. He just had to use it sparingly, was all.

Kevin took a short rest while he could. After all, he was going to need all the energy he could get for the second half of his tests.

* * *

The others watched as Kevin entered the next chamber, some ten minutes later. This trial was set in a tall chamber, tall enough to likely bring them back to the earth above if ascended. That said, ascension itself was made to be difficult; the rocky far wall was steep and too smooth to simply find a foothold and start climbing, and that was assuming anyone was fool enough to try directly climbing it in the first place. The primary course of action was to climb the platforms jutting out of strategically placed sections of the wall, and even that was dangerous. Some of these platforms moved from side-to-side. Others folded into the wall itself periodically. Near the top, there was a segment where the platforms moved well away from the wall, and were small enough that slipping on the landing would mean falling all the way down to the chamber floor.

Kevin visibly swallowed.

“Wonder how well he does in gym class,” Pit muttered.

Even Samus had an eyebrow raised. “You weren’t kidding when you said the second half is the harder half,” she said to Lana.

The challenge would, of course, be impossible for a normal person. Her own trials had been just as rigorous, but not _impossible_— had the Palace offered Kevin something to mitigate? She searched, and saw the Power Pad on Kevin’s belt.

That might work, and sure enough, Kevin steadied himself, prepared to jump, and pressed the A-button on the Power Pad. His image blurred as he leapt up to the first platform, which sat perfectly still in its place.

The movement startled the heroes (except for the stoic Samus), but Lana wasn’t as surprised. She knew that the Palace could provide weapons that were unlike any others out in the multiverse. Her own Power Glove, for example.

The next step was an active platform which moved slowly from the one Kevin was on to one high above him. He didn’t even need to use the Power Pad to cross it— just step from one to the other. It was no different from a vertical section in most platformers, though how Lana actually _knew_ that, she wasn’t ever clear.

As Kevin continued his ascent, Samus stepped back and turned for the teleport in the corner of the room. Simon watched her leave and said, “Disinterested?”

“I want a better look at the Palace grounds,” Samus replied. “I got here, saved the day, and got no look at the place I was actually saving. I want to do some patrolling, make sure there are no side doors for Mother Brain and her allies.”

“Can I come with?” Pit asked. “I mean, there should be more than one person keeping an eye on things, right?”

Samus shrugged. “Sure, kid. Come on— if you behave, I’ll let you push some buttons on my ship’s console. And bring the dog, in case he needs a walk.”

Pit gladly took the invitation, whistling for Duke to follow him and Samus through the teleport. Whatever reply he had for Samus, the others didn’t get to hear before they left. Now only with Simon and Mega Man to keep an eye on Kevin, Lana turned back to the window.

Kevin had made it about halfway at this point. From that point onwards, there were no platforms that didn’t move, and moved faster than the first few. For someone more accustomed to this sort of activity, they’d be at the top already. Kevin, on the other hand, had the good sense to pause once in a while. After all, some jumps were trickier than others.

“What kind of bad guys do you fight, Simon?” Mega Man asked. “Kevin mentioned Dracula.”

“I should hope he’s not a problem in your world,” Simon replied.

“Oh, no. It’s just a story in my world, and one that’s pretty definitively not true. He’s just another one of a lot of spooky monsters that kids in my world like to dress up as for Halloween. … Is there Halloween in your world? I think it’s too far back…”

Simon smiled. “I’ve not heard of it, no. But if children feel safe enough to play pretend, then I count that as a good thing. Answering your question, the enemies I fight are all kinds of creatures of the night. Werewolves, zombies, ghosts, and ghouls of all description. Vampires are simply my primary targets.”

Mega Man looked over Simon’s arsenal, visible at his belt. “Aren’t you supposed to use wooden stakes to kill vampires?”

Simon chuckled at that. “That’s recommended for the everyman, and it’s effective enough for most vampires. But my family has a long, proud history using only the Vampire Killer…” He patted the whip at his belt. “…From as far back as the late eleventh century.”

“Wow.” Mega Man scooted over, getting a closer look at the weapon. “That’s a long time.”

“It’s a tradition I uphold with pride.” Simon paused. “What of your enemy? I recognize that yours are the…”

“Robots.” Mega Man sat back. To Simon’s blank look, he guessed the word didn’t really exist yet, and explained: “The ones that were made of metal? Yeah. They’re controlled by Dr. Wily.”

“Kevin mentioned that name, as well.” And Dr. Wily’s past partnership with Dr. Light, but it seemed Simon felt no need to ask about that for the moment. “What is he, exactly, that he would have caught the attention of other powerful beings?”

The little Robot master scratched his head. “Dr. Wily isn’t anything special, really. He’s a scientist. A roboticist, like my creator. That’s as special as he gets, but I’ve also had to save my world from him twice already, so make of that what you will.”

“He’s a regular man?” Simon furrowed his brow. “That’s surprising.”

“Did you expect him to be something else?”

“At least to some degree.” Simon rubbed his chin. “But I suppose your technology is something as powerful as any magic, to allow such a thing. Two near-attempts at doing what he would with your world, I mean.”

Mega Man shifted awkwardly. “I guess, yeah.”

“Er, I don’t mean to be offensive. I apologize if—”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m just looking too deep into… I’m just being too sensitive, it’s okay.”

Lana wasn’t sure if she should interrupt or not, at least not at first. About three seconds later, the awkward silence was overbearing enough that she decided to draw their attention back to the reason they were still here, rather than outside with Samus and Pit. “Oh, Kevin’s almost at the top,” she said.

By that, she meant he was still a solid ten jumps away, but he was still quite a ways off the ground and so far, he’d gotten the hang of the Power Pad. He didn’t stumble as much when he landed, and he had learned to better control the height and distance at which he leapt. There was only one problem, which she realized not long after redirecting the others’ attention to it.

Kevin was no longer stopping at any point to catch his breath. Even when the next step was far away, he was comfortable enough to super jump to it anyway; but that didn’t mean it was actually safe to do so.

“He looks dizzy,” Mega Man said. “His eyes aren’t very focused.”

Simon stood up abruptly, approaching the window. Where Mega Man had no problem seeing at this distance, Simon had to put his arm to the glass and squint his eyes to get any kind of decent look.

“His legs are shaking,” he added. “This can’t be good.”

Lana got up as well. Holding her Power Glove to her chest, she came up next to Simon. Kevin was one jump away, now, and he went for it without hesitation.

He didn’t make it.


	3. Chapter 3

*

Kevin frantically flailed his hands for the edge of the final platform, but his fingertips only barely brushed the side before he plummeted, his heart practically leaping up into his throat and his lungs suddenly forgetting how to process air. Gravity pulled his back towards the ground, leaving him unable to see the ground closing in on him—or the saving light of the Palace catching him in mid-air, making the sudden stop feel like getting hit from behind by a car airbag.

Kevin gasped, processing that he wasn’t dead. Looking around, he almost seemed to be lying on some invisible hand. He made the mistake of looking down at the ground and quickly wishing he hadn’t— his brain already felt like it had gone spinning on an office chair for a solid ten minutes before being abruptly thrown off, but the staggering height beneath him was a blow that shot nausea through his gut. If he hadn’t been caught, he would have fallen to his death.

Looking up to see how far he’d fallen in what was about three seconds wasn’t doing him any favours, either.

Above him, the voice of the dungeon spoke. “You have failed this trial. You will now begin the next one.”

Well, great. That was a good start to his second set of these, wasn’t it?

He certainly learned his lesson now, though. No getting too excited: if he was starting to feel light-headed and achy, it was time to sit down for a little while. He’d been that close, and he’d _botched it_.

He was raised up to the top of the wall. His legs still felt like Jell-O, and standing up after his fall took monumental effort on his part. The others, showing up from… somewhere (his brain was way too scrambled to guess), jogged over to him.

“Are you alright, Kevin?” Mega Man asked. “That looked bad for a second there!”

“Yeah,” Kevin lied, hoping he didn’t look as bad as he felt. “I think I’ll just need a breather before the next one.”

Lana frowned and stepped forward, glancing down at the energy bar at the top of his Power Pad. “It ran out mid-jump,” she stated. Putting a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, she waited for him to look up at her before saying, “Be _careful_. I know it’s not easy, but…”

“Believe me, I got it,” Kevin insisted. “I’m already feeling better.”

Simon allowed the others to step away before approaching himself. He unclipped something from his belt and held it to him: “Here.”

It took a second for Kevin to register what Simon was giving him. He realized it was a sword: nothing special, just a regular one-handed steel (or maybe silver? He was a vampire hunter, after all) sword in a plain brown sheath. With a blink, he accepted it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very heavy.

“Is that really a beginner’s weapon?” Mega Man asked.

“It was one of mine,” Simon replied. “Kevin. We don’t know what lies ahead of you, but I feel it may prove useful to you, anyway. Just don’t cut yourself.”

It was a little embarrassing, having everyone give him constant advice to be cautious, like he was some rambunctious little kid on a camping trip. But given the context, he was grateful for it. “Thank you, Simon.”

Lucky Kevin that he had semi-recovered by this point, because Simon gave him a firm, encouraging slap on the back to push him forward. “Alright, then. Good luck on the following trial!”

Lana and Mega Man both offered their well wishes too, and Kevin managed to flash them a smile that hopefully was more _thanks, guys!_ than _I’m going to die_. Deciding not to stick around to see if they were convinced, Kevin moved on.

* * *

The next room was a simple hallway, lit well, and lined with about a dozen guillotines, swinging blades, flamethrowers and bottomless pits. The solid brick floor was only a comfort in that it was significantly less likely for him to slip and fall, but considering he had already had a near-death experience not five minutes ago, he wasn’t exactly eager to throw himself into the path of death.

The dungeon was not helpful. “Make it to the end of the room.”

_Thanks, I didn’t know what I had to do._ Sarcasm wasn’t Kevin’s favourite thing, but it was hard not to think.

He wasn’t sure if he should just rush in screaming, like he did sometimes when hitting that one hallway in _Castlevania_ with the Axe Armours and Medusa Heads (or the bridge on the next level where eagles dropped Flea Men all over the place, but that was the part of the game where the “run and hope for the best” strategy actually _worked_), or if he should stop and consider his options carefully before… doing exactly the same thing. Could he just throw the challenge and just hope he got through the last one?

Kevin shook his head. _No_, he couldn’t just give up now! There _had_ to be a way. He looked again at his Power Pad.

With it recharged, he thought again as to what the options were. If we committed to the stupid strategy, the D-pad might work. He could jump over some of the swinging blades, or even the guillotines, depending on how he timed it.

Thing was, he wasn’t concerned about the obstacles themselves, at least in the sense that he had no idea how to dodge them now that he’d taken a second to think about it. His more pressing concern was if there were any stops between. After all, if he needed to stop and think at any point during an NES game, he just had to hit the SELECT button and…

He had a lightbulb moment. Suddenly feeling a lot more confident, he took a deep breath and ran in.

The first obstacle, a set of flamethrowers, was an easy dodge— in that all he had to do was run through between spouts of fire. The air was still hot between them. He pressed the D-pad to rush through a guillotine that fell behind him, stopping at a guillotine that fell in front of him. He grabbed the top of the blade, backed with a piece of wood, and vaulted over it before it lifted. He stopped at the first set of three swinging blades.

He hit the SELECT button.

All at once, everything in the room stopped; the blades, in mid-swing, froze in the air. Fire from the flamethrowers in front of that stopped. Nothing moved except for Kevin himself.

He hadn’t noticed what the SELECT button did when he was first testing it out because the room the Power Pad had been in was already a completely still room, with nothing to observe as it halted in time. But here, the effect was a whole lot more obvious as he harmlessly jogged through the path of the swinging blades and hit the SELECT button again between obstacles.

The room resumed motion, and suddenly Kevin was reeling with dizziness.

_That_ was in an inescapable problem, though. The fact that he still had the whole energy thing to worry about. He managed not to stumble backwards, but he did know he was only about a quarter of the way through the room and he had to guess that he wouldn’t have time to stop like this _at all_ in the later part of this course. He’d have to be really conservative about using the Power Pad, if he wanted to avoid what happened last time.

He waited for it to pass. Was he going to have to deal with that every time he used the Power Pad? Surely not, right? Maybe over time he’d either get more used to it, or just build up some kind of immunity that made it harder for the Power Pad to totally wear him out. But thinking in the long term was a trip back down anxiety lane, which he really couldn’t afford right now.

Kevin waited just long enough to time himself properly before moving forwards. The flamethrowers just missed him when they came on. Kevin jumped onto a platform hovering over a pit of spikes, and carefully timed his way across the subsequent steps. He had no choice but to use the Power Pad to cross a series of guillotines with swinging axes between each one, then dodge a flamethrower stuck right in the center of the path. He yelped as he was halted by two walls colliding right in front of him.

As they pulled back, he saw spikes covering each one. There was another pit between them, with the platforms set up such that he could still cross without needing the D-pad— except, the walls slammed back together again far too quickly for him to do that.

He hit the SELECT button and rushed his way through. He realized quickly that out of all the functions of his Power Pad, the time pausing effect cost him the most energy; by the time he made it and found another spot to rest, he was suddenly gasping for breath again and had to resume time.

Almost there. The last stretch would have no breaks at all. The others were still watching, he assumed.

What was the last sequence? Guillotine, guillotine, five swinging axes in a row, flamethrowers on a spike pit, an especially wide jump. Then there were a solid three more jumps, another pair of colliding walls and one last leap for the end. There was also a weird black strip along the middle of the whole thing that stuck out from the rest of the trial. Impressed with himself as he was that he’d even made it this far, he didn’t exactly expect that to be easy— not if he had to limit his use of the Power Pad. An A in gym class didn’t mean much of anything when dealing with video game obstacles.

Man, if this _were_ a video game, what he wouldn’t give to find a hidden warp pipe or something. Would that be too generous of the Palace, to provide an easy out like that? It was hard to say what was in character for it, so to speak, between the benevolent protection from death within the dungeon and the whole _why the heck does it know what my mom looks like_ thing.

Not the time.

Preparing himself, Kevin decided he’d had enough time to think and ran in. That said, the second he put his foot on the black strip, he felt his foot slip beneath him.

_Ice physics_. Of _course_ this place, the quintessential combination of all the video games Kevin had ever played, had _ice physics_ in at least one of its trials.

And the way he’d timed it, if he had to cross the ice instead of running on solid stone, he was going to get hit. Gritting his teeth, he reached for the Power Pad and pressed the D-pad, speeding right past the guillotines and up to the first swinging axe. He quickly realized that _landing_ and _stopping_ were still affected, and that this had been a mistake.

In the moment that his heel slipped out from under him, and the arcing of a blade crossed his peripheral vision, Kevin silently and vehemently cursed ice physics and everything they stood for. He was from _California_, dangit, he didn’t _do_ ice sports. This wasn’t fair.

He fell on his butt and the blade halted mid-swing before it could slice him. He had a brief jolt of panic as it came close, replaced with distinct frustration when it stopped.

“You have failed this trial,” Kevin heard over the roar of fire far in front and behind him. “You will now begin the next one.”

“New lesson,” he grumbled. “Be _very careful_ what terrain to use the Power Pad on…”

That left him with one last shot to succeed through the Dungeon of Trails, and he had a bad feeling that he was going to be one that he’d _definitely_ fail. He didn’t like to think that way, but considering how badly he’d been messed up the last two, he had to worry.

And he could see why Lana had brought him to the Dungeon of Trials rather than letting him just bum weapons off of the others. Simon’s sword was cool and all, but it wasn’t going to help him out if he needed to climb something, or cross a big gap. The Power Pad on its own was incredibly useful, and he could think of a hundred ways to pitch in if he could keep it.

But as the dungeon retracted and halted its dangers to give him easy access to the next room, Kevin worried that it might be better if he didn’t make a promise that he couldn’t keep.

* * *

His final trial room looked like it came right out of Dracula’s castle. It was well-lit with wall-mounted candles and a chandelier, and two broken staircases on either side of the room. The door on the other side of the room, presumably leading to the end, was covered with iron bars. And the stone-paved floor— it rumbled, and several skeletons burst from the dirt.

“Win!” Was Kevin’s only instruction.

He once again smothered the urge to sass, because if the terrifying death trap obstacle course wasn’t the time to say it out loud, standing in front of a bunch of enemies was definitely not, either.

On the bright side, skeletons weren’t exactly the hardest things to kill. Annoying, depending on placement— like close to the start of _Castlevania_’s third level where there was one put right at the top of a staircase, exactly where it could throw its bones and make ascending the stairs harder than it needed to be. But they went down in one hit and weren’t hard to dodge if need be.

Beyond that, though, Kevin had not a single clue how to approach this other than to rely on pure instinct which he did not have. He drew Simon’s sword from his belt and held it out, as the skeletons themselves prepared for a fight as well. There were four of them— right now Kevin couldn’t remember if there was any point where there were more than two or three in a room. He decided it didn’t matter.

Kevin made the first swing at the closest skeleton’s ribs. The skeleton leapt back. Kevin stumbled— although he’d felt the sword’s weight at his hip since Simon gave it to him, he’d not actually tried it out at any point— nor had he really worked out what it took to actually use the thing if he needed to. It’d thrown him off-balance, and the enemy didn’t hesitate to take advantage.

The second skeleton knocked him flat on the floor, clacking its jaw. A third, rather than throw the bone in its hands like in-game, slammed it down towards Kevin’s side. In the moment’s panic, he managed to interrupt the blow by blocking with his arm. It was only marginally less painful than the strike to the side would have been, the hard bone knocking into just the right part of Kevin’s elbow that the entire joint suddenly felt like a tube man in a hurricane, and the feeling echoed through his entire arm.

Kevin hit the D-pad and found himself dragged across the floor, well away from the skeletons; there was a burning all throughout the side he’d been lying on. Okay, two lessons learned in the past five seconds: 1) blocking is also dangerous and 2) try and be on your feet when using the Power Pad.

He hastily pushed himself off the floor. His arm was still wobbling, and he was just lucky it wasn’t the arm that was holding the sword. He could see the first three skeletons approaching, but he also caught the fourth with its own sword, lurking behind them. Was that one waiting for its chance? … Skeletons didn’t have swords in _Castlevania_, did they? But the Stalfos in _The Legend of Zelda: The Adventure of Link_ did.

Boy, did this feel totally off-topic as he tried to fight for his life.

He was sure if he looked closer he could see some kind of difference, but right now, it was not the point. Kevin steadied the sword in his hand again and, while he had the distance to spare, gave it a quick practice swing. This time, having planted his feet, he’d managed to stay in one place.

He had exactly two seconds to feel proud of himself for figuring out the basics of using a weapon before two of the skeletons lunged at him again. He jumped to the side to avoid the first– he shoulder-checked the other one, wincing at his still-aching arm. He struck the third as it was about to attack and caught it in the ribs. Though Kevin hadn’t swung hard enough, the blow still toppled the monster into a pile of bones.

Kevin then had the sword knocked out of his hands by the fourth skeleton’s hilt and was kicked onto his back.

He hit his head on the ground, hard enough to make his vision fuzz out for a second. He shook it off as best he could and looked up at the one that had taken him down as easily as three of his buddies. While the skeleton began to raise its sword, Kevin groped for his blindly. Not finding it, he dared to look away to see where it was.

The sword was way too far to reach. And even if he managed to grab it, he wouldn’t be able to swing it, not to destroy the skeleton nor to defend himself, in time. In this moment, he remembered what Samus had said at the very start of his trials: _if anything happens, we can bust in_.

Well, it wasn’t like he had other options. If it was an automatic failure, well, he was about to fail anyway. “I need help!” he cried out.

One minute, he was on his back looking at the undead’s sword about to swing down. The next, the weight of the enemy was thrown off of him by bright yellow buster shots, breaking it to pieces. The other looming skeletons were destroyed with the crack of a whip and the strike of a glove. Simon was the first to help him up, while Lana picked up the sword for him.

Kevin let out a breath. “Thanks, guys,” he said.

Mega Man smiled. “Well, at least you almost made it,” he offered. “You did really well out there.”

“Nothing a bit of training won’t fix,” Simon added.

Kevin sighed and accepted the sword back from Lana. But before he could say anything, the dungeon interrupted with the verdict:

“Congratulations! You have conquered the Dungeon of Trials.”

Kevin startled. “Wait, what?”

“When you feel you cannot complete a challenge, there is no shame in calling for help. I know very well that this is your first time fighting out in the world, and you have both the potential and the will to be a great hero indeed.”

“Wise,” Lana murmured. After a pause: “_Convenient_, but wise.”

“Well, I’m not complaining.” Kevin scratched the back of his head.

The iron bars over the last door raised into the wall, out of the way. Kevin sheathed the sword, watching as the door slid open of its own accord. Like before, a brilliant light shone forth, bathing Kevin and the others, beckoning them forward. For a moment, Kevin wasn’t sure he should go through. After all, he hadn’t _really_ earned it, he thought.

But Simon patted his shoulder in a gesture of encouragement, and Mega Man raised a thumbs up. What was he going to do, deny the judgment of the actual heroes in the room?

Lana gestured with her head, and that was about the last prompt Kevin needed to move on. He headed for the door.

* * *

This room was just like the last one, albeit with one major difference; it was outside. The sun shone from above, seemingly right over the altar some feet in front of him. In the place of walls, the clearing was surrounded by a thick line of trees. Glancing back, he could see that the part of the dungeon that was above ground was just outside of the boundaries of the Palace of Power’s shields, and camouflaged by thick foliage. Unless someone already knew it was there, they would never have found the place. _Maybe_.

Something about that bothered him, but he set it aside for a moment. Instead, he turned back to the altar and started walking down the pathway. Except, as he looked up, he saw that he wasn’t the first person to come here, and his prize wasn’t waiting in the beam of light.

Instead, there was a teenage girl, somewhat taller than Kevin. She had the same white-and-red letterman jacket with the same ‘N’ logo on the back, worn-in jeans and combat boots. Kevin recognized a head of light-brown hair with dark roots, and as she turned around, his suspicions were confirmed.

He was one of the most passionate kids in his school when it came to video games. He was somewhat known for it, enough that other kids would ask him for advice if they were stuck on a level. That said, he wasn’t the _best_ at it by a long shot. Instead, that title of being the local game master of Northridge High went to someone else.

That someone else, of course, being the girl in front of him: a Japanese girl named Miki, who looked down at him from the altar with vague surprise written in raised eyebrows and a curled lip.

“Oh,” she said mildly. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Keene.”


End file.
